Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
...

Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

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By Rob Meltzer

April 3, 2013
12:21 p.m.

Whenever I come back from a major holiday and start delving into the news to see what I’ve missed, certain news stories just jump out as absurd. I was struck my two stories that my clipping service thought might be of interest, and both of them involve the World Trade Center.

The first story was from a lawyer for a group of atheists who just lost a case which will allow the World Trade Center “Cross’ to be included in the museum. Here is a quote which cites the lawyer, Silverman:

“September 11 ‘affected all Americans, not just Christians,’ Silverman continued. ‘We will not sit and let the 500 atheists who died on 9/11 go unnoticed.’

Silverman said his group plans to appeal the decision. ‘We are confident that we will eventually win this case and that cross will be removed, or atheists will be allowed to have our own symbol in there,’ he said.”

The response to this has to be:

“Dear Attorney Bonehead: the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center because they viewed the World Trade Center as the ultimate symbol of ungodliness. They attacked our Temple of Government Power and our Temple of Financial Power. Liberty Tower, and the whole damn memorial complex at the 9/11 site, is a 4 billion dollar memorial to atheism. The Christians get one stinking cross, and its made of twisted structural steel. Get over yourself.”

The second story is that the government is once again sifting construction debris for human remains.

“Truckloads of debris pulled from the site of the World Trade Center will be sifted for remains, New York Cityís chief medical examiner said.

The process will last about 10 weeks, Ynet News reported. And not all the families are happy.

‘I personally, and the people in my organization, would rather wait until we are guaranteed that there is a quality of excellence and that we will have the procedures done in the correct way,’ said Sally Regenhard, who lost her son in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, about the abilities of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, as quoted in Ynet.

This the first time in nearly three years that authorities have sifted the remains.

So far, medical examiners have identified 1,634 of the 2,752 who were killed.”

According to AP reports, the government has already spent nearly forty million dollars of tax payer money trying to match DNA.